


walked away and back you came (like a hurricane)

by scarletite



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Bright Moon is a boba shop slash cafe, Catra (She-Ra) Needs a Hug, Catra is still a catgirl, F/F, Friends to Enemies, Friends to Enemies to Lovers, The Horde is a coffee shop
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-12
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:00:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24672754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarletite/pseuds/scarletite
Summary: It’s been three years since they last saw each other. Three years since Adora abandoned her. And approximately a week since Catra started scoping out this ridiculous little cafe she’s apparently decided is her new home.-Or: The one in which Catra’s best form of revenge is making herself every customer service person’s worst nightmare, Adora is the long-suffering barista, and Glimmer and Bow are just caught in the crossfire of these two gay disasters.
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 95





	walked away and back you came (like a hurricane)

**Author's Note:**

> i hate coffee shop au’s, so don’t even ask me where this came from, buuut I kind of love the idea of catra as a shitty customer deliberately trying to piss adora off with more and more ridiculous orders.

Bright Moon is disgustingly hipster.

It is brightly lit in crisp whites, soft lilacs and golds. There’s pops of color everywhere, mismatched chairs at mismatched tables, keep-cups for sale beside housebrand coffee beans. They even have a wall that’s entirely grass, from the looks of things.

Catra sucks at her straw, grimacing at the thick, chewy mouthful. She flicks the straw. The black pearls slop around at the bottom of the mint-green drink. 

Matcha boba, apparently. 

_Disgusting._

She takes another loud, awful sip.

It’s just after two o’clock, and she’s picked this time deliberately to scope it out. It’s after the lunch rush, before the dreaded after-school rush and the even worse after-work rush. Empty, but for her, a handful of customers, and two staff.

 _Sparkles,_ she mentally assigns the first employee. A girl with bleached pink-purple hair mashed under a backwards cap. 

_Croptop_ , she decides for the other, blinking at the boy wearing a literal crop top under his apron—and that _has_ to be breaking all sorts of food service rules. 

She hated them both on sight, of course. Had barely stomached Croptop’s peppy smile as he took her order. The secret, yearning looks they exchange every five minutes is like looking at lovesick puppies. They’re enough to make a girl puke.

On any other day, Catra wouldn’t be caught dead in a place like this. Her usual haunts are far from Instagram worthy. She wouldn’t be seen anywhere with this fairy princess color scheme.

But, she’s here for a reason.

A purely objective, not at all weird reason.

A blonde reason.

Sure enough, not ten minutes after she skulked through the doors of Bright Moon, a harried-looking girl bursts through the door with her signature ponytail askew and her shirt on backwards.

“Adora!” Sparkles calls. “You’re late!”

“Sorry!” Adora’s got a backpack swung to the front, she’s digging through it and huffing, even as she darts around a customer and further inside. “Huntara asked me to spot her bench press, and I was—”

“Absolutely weak for a lady with muscles the size of your head?” Sparkles rolls her eyes, grinning. “We know.”

Fixing her ponytail quickly, Adora slaps a cap on her head and slips it through the back. The tips of her ears glow red. “I am not.”

Croptop slips a drink into Adora’s hand as she moves behind the counter. He pats her reassuringly on the shoulder. “It’s perfectly natural to want a big, strong lady to fold you in half. We support you.”

“Ugh,” Adora takes an aggressive sip of her drink—it’s purple, loaded with cream and sprinkles. “I hate you guys.”

“Aww,” Croptop snatches her by the back of the apron she’s putting on. Then, as an afterthought, snatches Sparkles as well. He draws them both into a loose hug, rubbing their cheeks together. “I love you guys.”

“Oh my God, Bow!” Adora giggles, cheeks fluorescent. “Stooop.”

And Sparkles laughs too. Rather than pulling away, she wraps her arms around them both until they’re swaying and writhing in an awkward, three-way hug like drunken octopuses. 

It’s disgusting.

Catra slams her half-empty cup down on the table, scowling into the folds of her hoodie. 

Disappointingly, the noise doesn’t even earn anything more than a cursory look from the old man sipping a coffee at a table across from her. She hisses at him anyway.

She looks at Adora: laughing and smiling, eyes bright and _alive_ in the way she once looked at Catra and it’s…it…

_It used to be hers._

Without thinking, she squeezes her cup so hard that her hands shake. Until the cheap—fully recycled—plastic crumples. 

It bursts with a quiet _pop,_ spilling matcha milk and little tapioca pearls all over the table.

She doesn’t even realise she’s done it, until some spills into her lap. 

“Shit!” Catra lurches to her feet, with a screech of the tacky pink stool and the bang of her legs slamming into the table. She hisses, tail lashing. Stupid, flimsy cup. “Damn it.”

“Are you okay, Miss? Here, let me help—”

She looks up, into deep blue eyes.

“…Catra?”

The floor opens up between them, a proverbial minefield. And suddenly, despite her damp jeans and the sticky mess dripping from the table, all she hears is white noise.

“Hey, Adora.”

* * *

See, this is how it began—

They were fifteen, half-starved things living on the meagre meals that their foster mother provided and kicked out of the house from dawn to dusk most days. They had complained, at first. But, on the days Weaver kept them home, they’d quickly realised being free with each other’s company was infinitely better than being stuck with _her._

And they began to frequent this tiny cafe, a few blocks from their house. _Hordak’s,_ it was called, although all the locals called it _The Horde,_ on account of all the wayward kids that seemed to call it home.

They offered cheap and sludgy coffee almost exclusively. There were rats in the store room and mould in the ceiling. But refills were free and the workers turned blind eyes to the brats that lingered in its dirty booths. 

By the time they’re sixteen, they’re approached by the boss himself. 

Hordak, with his narrow eyes and his unpleasant smile. He’d cornered them one day, glaring down. “You waste enough time here,” he’d said to them, dropping two grime-encrusted aprons on the table. “Training starts today.”

They’d glanced between each other, bewildered. 

But, well, a job was a job. They were in no position to say no, considering they spent every day there anyway. And money was something they were just beginning to talk about, becoming more present, more urgent.

So they accept, wander home with too-big uniforms and a wad of cash that they squirrel away in a sock in their shared dresser—their lifeline, their savings, for the big, scary world _after._

And even Weaver could find no fault in it. Was actually happy, for once—

“Wonderful initiative, girls,” she had said, eyes on Adora more than Catra. “I expect nothing less. Do not waste this opportunity.”

And they don’t.

They work hard, because the Horde—because Hordak—accepts nothing less. They begin with washing dishes, in water that’s burning hot and chemicals so strong it leaves their hands raw. 

But then they learn more: how to make that specific brand of near-black coffee, the most effective ways to set mouse traps, how to distract the health inspectors so that they have time to tidy up because _wow we did not get enough time to clean this mess and there’s roaches in the beans._

It is gross and tiring and hard, but it is theirs. The Horde is their place. And at nights, in the room they’ve shared for years, they whisper all night about opening up a place all their own: coffee shop below, where Adora can work her mysterious magic and turn even the worst beans into something tolerable, and an apartment above, where Catra can forget to pick up her dirty clothes and laugh at Adora until she does it herself.

The dream of a life together, quiet and awed and everything.

* * *

It all fell apart on a Tuesday.

* * *

_(“Adora,” Weaver calls to her, something unusual in her voice. “Come down here.”_

_And because you can’t say Adora without Catra—the two so tangled up in each other, more AdoraandCatra than any individual entity—they both stampede down the stairs._

_They fall short at the dining table, because it’s not just Weaver at the table._

_There’s Adora’s social worker, Hope, and two women with hands held across the table top._

_“Adora,” Hope begins_

_And Catra, she knows what it is, hand clenching Adora’s so tight it’s bone-white._

_“This is Razz and Mara,” Hope gestures to them each._

_The dark-haired woman, Mara, stands up with a screech. She’s tall, so, so tall. And she has eyes the same shape as Adora’s, a smile just as kind. “It is so wonderful to see you, Adora.”_

_Adora is still, hand clutching Catra’s just as tight. She’s wordless, mouth a flat line._

_“I’m your cousin. Razz is my wife.” Mara looks at Adora like she’s a ghost, but like she’s something so precious, she can’t bare to look away. “I’m sorry it took us so long to find you. We’re here to take you home.”)_

* * *

“Is it really you?”

The milk tea slowly spills onto the floor, joining the cloth Adora’s unwittingly dropped.

“Who else could it be, idiot?” A little milk splatters on her ratty shoes, and she growls. “That was nasty. And that cup was shit. I want a refund.”

Adora just gapes. “It _is_ you.”

“You’re as smart as ever.”

Catra steps away from the table, grimacing at the squelching noise and the black pearls skittering out from under her shoes. Sure, they’ve been soaked in milk and chemicals a million times—proven by the stains, and the fact that they’re more brown than black—but she’s not looking forward to sticky feet. 

Adora reaches out to her, as if to stop her.

Ears pinned back, her tail fluffing, Catra jerks away so fast that she almost skids over. “ _Don’_ _t_ ,” she hisses, “touch me.”

“I haven’t seen you in years, Catra! I tried to call you so many times, but you never picked up.” Adora looks at her, with eyes so blue and sad that it almost cuts through her. “Where were you?”

She laughs, high pitched and not at all nice. “Where was I? Where were you?!”

“You know where—”

“You abandoned me, Adora.” She says it, and the admission rings loudly in her own ears. She sees the hurt, deep and unexpected, flash across Adora’s face. “You abandoned me, with her. So don’t even pretend you care.”

“I didn’t want to abandon you.”

“Yeah, well,” she flashes a bitter smile. “You did.”

Adora opens her mouth, grief and anger playing across her face. “Catra—”

“Adora.” It’s Sparkles, laying a hand on Adora’s tense shoulder. She’s frowning. She looks at Catra, pointing at the little badge pinned her apron— _Glimmer, Manager._ “Is something going on here?”

If possible, her tail fluffs up even larger. “Yeah, your employee here is harassing me.”

“Harassing?” Adora’s eyes flash. “I’m trying to _help_ you.”

“Then go get a mop or something, and leave me _alone_. I don’t want your help.” 

She can’t help herself, her tone defensive, cutting—and, suddenly, she’s wishing she’d ignored Entrapta’s message, the _I found her_ and the GPS pin that’s led her to staking this place out for the last few days. She’s wishing she never set foot inside Bright Moon. 

At once, Catra hates how weak she is. How weak Adora’s always made her feel.

“Catra,” Adora bites out, and it’s the same firm but tough tone she always used with the shitty customers—the warning there, saying _I don’t care what you say, this is my place_. It’s the tone that, once, would have made her snicker along. “You can’t just come in here and—”

But Sparkles gently pushes Adora away. “Adora, go help Bow. I’ll deal with this.”

“Glimmer, you don’t understand, she’s—”

“Adora, _go_.”

“Yeah, Adora. _Go_.”

She stands the for a long, terse moment, mouth opening and closing. Then, finally, with one last look at Catra, she turns her head and leaves.

“I’m so sorry about that,” Sparkles says, grabbing a few napkins and offering them to her. “Here. I can unlock the bathroom for you, if you want to clean up.”

“Forget it.” She ignores the offer, pointing to the sign on the wall— _we’ll make your drink perfect, or your money back guaranteed._ “I want a new one. That tasted like shit.”

Sparkles frowns at her. “Of course. Are you...okay?”

From over Sparkles’ shoulder, Adora’s deep blue eyes cut into hers. She’s behind the counter again, Croptop muttering quietly and quickly to her. She’s nodding and mumbling back, but she doesn’t look away. She’s frothing the milk for some preteen, and it screeches loudly, completely unlike the usual precision Catra _knows_ she has. 

The screeching goes on and on, until Croptop reaches over and touches Adora’s shoulder. 

Only when Adora looks away, frowning at the possibly-thermonuclear milk in her hands, does Catra’s breath return to her chest. 

“You know what? Forget the drink,” Catra decides, lip curling in a snarl. “Another time. Put it on a tab.”

Glimmer opens her mouth. “We don’t—”

“I’ll be back.”

But Catra is already gone, up and out the door.


End file.
